New York City restaurants will have to use trans-fat-free cooking oil under regulations adopted unanimously yesterday by the city’s Board of Health. The board did give the restaurant industry time to find alternative oils that do not significantly alter the taste of foods.
The board, which passed the ban unanimously, did give restaurants a slight break by relaxing what had been considered a tight deadline for compliance. Restaurants will be barred from using most frying oils containing artificial trans fats by July and will have to eliminate the artificial trans fats from all of their foods by July 2008.